


i watch the glass break (around my guarded heart tonight)

by atlantisairlock



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Not Canon Compliant, POV First Person, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I run, and they let me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i watch the glass break (around my guarded heart tonight)

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'thunder' by jessie j.

A revolution begins with a spark.

 _She_ begins with the attack on Thirteen. 

They're going to kill them. I know it. They'll see this propo and they'll know they've failed, that they haven't killed the Mockingjay. And then they'll kill them, Peeta, Johanna and Annie. Probably on Capitol TV. Two of my best friends, and the love of Finnick's life. I can't go through with it. I can't have three more deaths on my conscience. I can't look into Finnick's eyes for the rest of my life and see Annie reflected back in them until the day I die. 

I run, and they let me. 

 

 

Gale, Effie and Haymitch have known me long enough; they know to leave me alone. Cressida doesn't, and I'm almost grateful for that when she finds me in the bunks and sits by me. I'm not sure how she knows I'm ready to talk, or even just listen. Maybe it's a shift in the air, or the way I exhale just the slightest, but she turns her gaze on me. 

"Katniss." Cressida tilts my chin up so she's looking right at me. "I know it's hard. I know you think he'll kill them. We won't force you to do anything you don't want to do, I promise. Not on my watch." She pauses, tapping her fingers against her knee. "We're setting Finnick up for a propo instead... Beetee's got something up his sleeve, I think. But that's not what I came here to tell you. I came to say that... we believe in you." I'm not sure who _we_ happens to be, but I know what she really means. It's the first time I notice how her eyes are dark green, sunset-warm. "If it means anything,  _I_ believe in you."

It does. 

It's not everything, but it's something.

 

 

The next District we go to is Seven; apparently they came up with a brilliant way to get rid of every single Peacekeeper stationed in their District and Coin thinks it's the perfect opportunity to display the power of the people. We strap in once we're in the hoverjet and it's almost routine now- the rest of the team even grabs the chance to have some shut-eye. 

I don't even realize how badly I'm shaking, still rubbed raw from the bombings, until Cressida reaches over and takes my hand in hers. It's the lightest squeeze, like the pump of a beating heart, and the pad of her thumb traces an indiscernible pattern against the back of my hand. When she makes a move to draw her hand back, I don't let go, and there's one chilling moment when I think I see something cross her face, but then the tension in her muscles seems to seep out. She relaxes into the seat, and her hand is clasped in mine until we reach Seven. 

For the first time since I reached Thirteen, I feel like I'm safe. I feel like I belong.

 

 

We go to Eleven, and then Five, and then Three. It's funny how it almost slips into something like normalcy. We get on the hoverjet, strap in, fly, get down, shoot, get back in, fly back, and then the footage is cut, edited, put together and broadcasted across Panem. Three's supposed to be like any other propo shoot. 

But it isn't.

We're still filming in front of the cordoned-off area which is still buzzing with electricity when the first bomb comes down. Instantly it's complete havoc. Boggs is screaming for us to  _get back into the jet, evac, evac now,_ I'm running, we're running, something punches through my chest that I recognise as panic. There's one sickening moment when the ground opens beneath me and I trip and I'm falling for all of three seconds but it seems like forever, but Pollux grabs me before I can disappear into the widening chasm and I'm back up again. The hoverjet is right there, ready to takeoff, and for one moment I believe with all my heart we're going to make it.

And then I hear her scream.

_"Castor!"_

He's trapped under debris. He's too far. He won't make it.

Then she's running, the way I did, but it's the wrong way. The bomber jets are circling back. They're coming for us. We have to go.

I'm already halfway up the ramp and everything plays out in front of me like a propo on slow-mo in the control room, how she drags the rubble off him by sheer force of will and roars at him to _run,_ and she's right behind him, and he's in the jet and she's just footsteps behind him, she's  _right there_ -

it's like a landslide, the way the building crumbles into ruin right in front of me. In seconds she's been barricaded off and I can't even see her anymore. I think I scream, or at least I want to, and then Gale is dragging me into the safety of the jet, and there's darkness, and quiet, and so much pain.

The last thing I  _don't_ see is Cressida safely on the hoverjet.

 

 

I'm in the control room spitting out the situation machine-gunfire quick the moment we return. "We have to get her."

She can't possibly say no. Cressida shoots our propos. They're what's getting the Districts to rally alongside us. They're keeping us alive.

But she does. 

"Katniss. It's too risky. They're on high alert at District 3, Beetee's got the newest information; it's straddling the cliff-edge of a suicide mission - "

I interrupt Alma Coin's earnest, impassioned soon-to-be-speech with a slam against the table. It sends shockwaves up the heel of my palm all the way down to my overworked heart, beating double time. "You will rescue Cressida or you won't just lose your propos, you'll lose your Mockingjay. You _will_ rescue Cressida or I will walk straight out of Thirteen and die in that wasteland." 

I can't even look at her. Her eyes aren't Cressida's warm liquid jade I remember so well; they're hard ice. I know that if I look at her I'll see myself reflected back, and I can't bear that. Not right now.

In the end it's Gale who has to pull me back by the shoulders, who  _promises_ that approval or no approval, he'll get a crack team and he'll get Cressida out of there. By himself, if he needs to, but I know he won't go alone. They won't let him. I know there isn't a prayer that they'll let me get within five feet of the jet let alone into a red-spot area now, which means that I have to put her life into his hands, into their hands, into hands that aren't mine. 

Instead of telling me how selfish I'm being, which I can read off everyone's faces, Gale says _trust me_ , and it's my only choice.

 

 

In the end, for all her talk, Coin doesn't have a choice - she might not need Cressida, but she needs her Mockingjay, so my threat is enough. They fly in to rescue Cressida eighteen hours after we left, enough time for them to rest and recuperate and a buffer period for Snow to call off his jets once he's assured he's wrecked Three's landscape and their confidence, and I swear I'm going to wait up for her - but Prim slips right into her nurse/doctor persona and demands I get some sleep. I argue with her until I'm too exhausted to continue, which means that I'm fast asleep when they bring her in. Boggs taps me on the shoulder and he doesn't need to say a word; I'm up like a shot. 

When I see her, it's as if something settles, as if my reflection in the mirror's shifted back into its rightful state again, as if, for one moment, everything is right with the world. She's suffered minor wounds, Prim tells me, nothing serious, and it barely registers as I take slow steps across the floor towards her. I tread cautiously, each step measured, because I'm so certain that it's all going to collapse under my feet the way it did in Three all over again.

"I'm here," Cressida murmurs, her voice sandpaper-rough from ash and dust, and it's all I need. I cross the room in three paces and she's there, she's  _there,_ I can breathe embers and soot and relief and she's in my arms. 

I don't need to say anything. I don't  _want_ to say anything. I want it all to have been a bad dream. I don't want to see the edifice falling apart and cutting her off from me. I don't want to see the way the door of the hoverjet closed, leaving her behind, when I shut my eyes. 

 _"Katniss,"_ she whispers, and when I kiss her, I keep my eyes open, and close my fist around all that I know for sure. 

That fire is catching, and Snow will burn.

That we will save Peeta, and Johanna, and Annie, and Panem. 

That I love her.

That this is not how it ends. 


End file.
